Dumb Idols

What do Colton Dixon, Tim Tebow and Santa Claus have in common?

They’re loved by Pagans in all 50 States!

Οἴδατε ὅτι ἔθνη ἦτε πρὸς τὰ εἴδωλα τὰ ἄφωνα ὡς ἂν ἤγεσθε ἀπαγόμενοι.

1 Corinthians 12:2

The word “idolatry” is a transliteration of the Greek word εἰδωλολατρία [eidololatria]. This is a compound of εἴδωλον [eidolon] and λατρεία [latreia]. Eidolon comes from the noun εἶδος [eidos], meaning “what is seen”; latreia means “service and worship”. Therefore, eidololatria means “the service and worship of what is seen”. Idolatry is a sin because God is a spirit and can’t be seen (John 4:24), so if you’re worshipping what you can see, you’re not worshipping God (cf John 20:29).

Additionally, the Apostle Paul tells us in Colossians 3:5 that idolatry is synonymous with covetousness (πλεονεξία [pleonexia], “greedy desire for more”). So where there’s idolatry, there’s covetousness.

Of course, no Christian worth his salt would ever put his approval on idolatry. Even the wealthiest, most apostate mega-church guru has enough propriety left to denounce the worship of idols; which makes it even stranger that so many Christians think being an idol is something to cheer about.

American Idol hopeful Colton Dixon is supposed to be a Christian. The 20-year-old’s parents are said to be missionaries in the Philippines and he says he gives all the glory to God. Of course, he also said, “I want America to see me as someone to look up to.”

So, clearly, he’s been spending more time singing in front of a mirror than he has studying the Doctrine of Christ.

Colton and his parents might want to read Luke 6:26, Christ’s curse on popularity.

Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! For so did their fathers to the false prophets.

Then, to further their horror, they can take a look at Matthew 5:11-12.

Blessed are ye, when [men] shall revile you, and persecute [you], and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

Tim Tibow, the NFL quarterback, late of the Denver Broncos, and Christian media darling, would do well to paint those verse numbers under his eyes. They just might give him and his fan(atic)s some needed perspective.

The Mile High Messiah’s Christianized antics on the field have so bewitched football-loving believers that they’ve actually rechristened (see what I did there?) the act of genuflecting to pray as “tebowing”.

Just as Jesus Commanded (Matt 6:6)

Tebow himself has rechristened “making money from wearing underwear on TV” as “not portraying or advocating sexuality”. Oh, and “classy”:

“People may say it's underwear, but everyone wears underwear. It's not like I'm doing something risqué,” he said to ESPN. “I wouldn't do anything that goes against what I stand for. The whole campaign is very classy.”

Underwear ad. Classy. I'm not sure Tim knows what that word means. Just like “mammon” (see Matt 6:24).

Why would any Christian want to be famous? Being looked at and up to by those who hate Jesus will not make you a good disciple, but it will expose your love for the praise of men over the praise of God (John 12:43).

Look it’s this simple, no matter how much evangelizing you tell yourself you’ll do once you’re famous, it won’t make up for all the compromising you’ll have to do to get there. You can’t want to be an idol without having an unhealthy regard for idols yourself. No one who hates hunting will ever want to be a champion hunter, right?



Or, as the Apostle John put it, "Kids, keep yourselves from idols" (1 John 5:21).

Pearls Meet Swine

Pity poor Kirk Cameron, set-up and sucked-in by Piers Morgan on CNN.

ψυχικὸς δὲ ἄνθρωπος οὐ δέχεται τὰ τοῦ πνεύματος τοῦ θεοῦ· μωρία γὰρ αὐτῷ ἐστιν καὶ οὐ δύναται γνῶναι ὅτι πνευματικῶς ἀνακρίνεται.

1 Corinthians 2:14

Despite being warned about popularity by Jesus (Luke 6:26), the ex child-star is still doing his best to be a famous Christian personality, so, last Friday, he appeared on Piers Morgan Tonight to promote his new Christian documentary, Monumental; a sickening piece of American Christian idolatry about “this great nation of ours”, judging from the trailer.

Listening to Cameron talking about looking to the Founding Fathers to help secure a “great future” for his kids reminds me that the pejorative “hypocrite” is a transliteration of the Greek word for “actor”, ὑποκριτής [hypokrites]; a term used 20 times by Jesus in the NT to describe a false interpreter of Scripture.

As to the Morgan interview, as anyone with an ounce of nous could've predicted, Piers, doing what every secular progressive does when they’ve got an avowed Christian on their show, got Cameron to say something that confirmed for CNN-land that all believers are hateful, small-minded Neanderthals. Morgan dropped the unwitting Christian documentarian right onto the third-rail of modern public evangelism, homosexuality. He asked Cameron what he thought of gay marriage and what he would say if his son told him he was gay.

Here’s the video:



The more I learn about Cameron’s latest movie, the longer the list of mistakes he makes here gets, but for now, I only want to look at one in particular.

The Bible verse that came to my mind upon hearing this exchange on the radio (see the first line of this post) was Matthew 7:6.

Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.

Every Christian that thinks he should be debating with or preaching to unbelievers should study that verse very carefully. Then they should think seriously about who on Earth the Lord is referring to as “dogs” and “swine” (hint: starts with un and ends in believers).

Now, I know it’s hard for Christians to stop casting pearls before swine, because they’ve been force-fed the lie of the Great Commission. They are convinced that it is their mission in life to come up with soul-winning arguments from the Word; but that is simply not true. The only thing they need to tell unbelievers is The Gospel:

¹Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you...²By which also ye are saved...³How that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; ⁴And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. (1 Cor 15:1-4)

That’s it; that’s all. If God doesn’t open their understanding to the Gospel, everything else is a waste of time—move on to someone else. The reason for this is that, as the Apostle Paul tells us, unbelievers can’t understand the Word of God because it is spiritually discerned (see 1 Corinthians 2:14).

The video below is proof of that. It’s of Piers Morgan completely misrepresenting everything Cameron said about homosexuality to another guest:

What they perceive not, they defame. (Jude 1:10)

So, Kirk, next time listen to Jesus, not your instincts, and politely tell the swine that he can't have your pearls.

An Important Distinction

If God isn’t chastising you for your sins, then He doesn’t love you and you’re not one of His Elect.

εἰ δὲ χωρίς ἐστε παιδείας ἡς μέτοχοι γεγόνασιν πάντες ἄρα νόθοι ἐστε καὶ οὐχ υἱοί.

Hebrews 12:8

Because I’m often in the car these days, I find myself listening to a lot of Christian radio; much more than I ever did back in NZ. And although Sandy maintains that I only listen in order to find fault with the presenters, preachers and personalities, I actually listen in order to compare and hone my theology against the various streams of mainline theology aired there. It’s not my fault if I end up always finding fault with the presenters, preachers and personalities.

It’s not surprising either, given that mainline Christian theology is so unscriptural, culture-bound and self-contradicting. Just like mainline Christian thinking with regards to the military that we explored in the last post, the handling of any subject on Christian radio is hamstrung by the unsoundness of the presenter’s basic Christian doctrine. In most cases, the Big Three Fallacies will be their undoing. These are:

1. God Loves Everyone
2. Believers Choose to Believe
3. The Great Commission

There are other fallacies (e.g. God Wants Us Healthy & Wealthy) but one or more of those three stumbling-blocks to doctrinal soundness will easily trip up 95% of the people on Christian radio 95% of the time.

A humorous example of this occurred just the other day. I was listening to a preacher railing against the things that make Christians turn away from God. One of these things, he said, was when God scourges us. His proof texts were Proverbs 3:12:

For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son [in whom] he delighteth.

...and Hebrews 12:6:

For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

At one point in his sermon, he started asking the congregation questions to facilitate their acceptance of the idea that God does indeed scourge His children (Greek word μαστιγόω [mastagoö], meaning to whip with a scourge):

“Does he love you? Yes, you’re His children. He will scourge you!”

Then he unwittingly painted himself in a corner:

“Does he love unbelievers?”

Pause, two, three...I thought he was actually going to say, “Obviously not, because He doesn’t scourge them”; the natural implication from the distinction those two verses make.

“Of course, because He loves everyone.”

...and then he continued on with his sermon hurriedly, hoping to distance himself from the glaring contradiction between his fallacious belief that God loves everyone and the obvious conclusion from his sermon that He doesn’t.

A Good Soldier of Jesus Christ

Christians should not be helping Christians kill other Christians.

σὺ οὖν κακοπάθησον, ὡς καλὸς στρατιώτης Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ.

2 Timothy 2:3

This post was going to be an examination of the biblical commandments ordering God’s People not to entangle their social lives with the social lives of unbelievers, the enemies of Christ. However, while amassing my evidence, a particular form of this widespread and unscriptural fraternization started to agitate me more than all the others, so I decided instead to focus on that; and by “that” I mean Christian involvement in the military.

I mentioned this in passing back in November, in the post The Separation of Church and State, Veteran’s Day Edition, but always intended to say more about it at a later date. I knew that American Christians had it bad, but the more time I spend in the U.S., the direr the situation seems. Simply put, a large number of American Christians are delusional with regards to military service and cannot see that their participation in, and support of, the U.S. Military is idolatrous and antichrist (of course this applies to every Christian in every nation—even Israel—but as I’m in America, and Christian military participation here is endemic, I’ll confine my remarks to them).

In order to make my point, I’m going to examine two of the better arguments I could find in favor of Christian participation in the military. One of these is mainly theological, the other is more socio-political.

First up is Pastor John MacArthur of Grace to You. MacArthur is a highly regarded Christian apologist, scholar and theologian. Few of today’s popular preachers are credited with such perceptive, exegetical insight as MacArthur. If anyone’s opinion on this matter could be said to be representative of the American protestant church at large, it would be his.

I first got a sense of MacArthur’s opinion on Christians and the military when I viewed the following Youtube video clip from the Larry King Live show. Now, while I admit that these off-the-cuff statements of MacArthur’s are probably not the most credible argument he could mount, he still made them, publically, and to my knowledge has yet to retract them. There's certainly been no indication that his interpretations of the few verses he uses to justify his position in the clip below have changed. Therefore, I have no qualms in presenting them as indicative of his “first principles” with regards to this debate.

In the clip, the guests were asked for the “Christian Position” on the (at that time) upcoming war with Iraq. MacArthur answers first:

So, John MacArthur is convinced, and teaches, that Christ endorsed the use of violence for personal and national defense. As long as a U.S. Military campaign is believed by the Christian to be defensive in nature, he is free to participate in killing anyone the Pentagon calls “the enemy”.

Amazingly, MacArthur forgets all about the Lord commanding us to “love” our enemies (see Matthew 5:44; Luke 6:27 & 35), and to not resist evil, but to turn the other cheek instead (see Matthew 5:39). He also ignores the Apostle Paul’s instruction to not be conquered by evil, but rather conquer evil with good (Romans 12:21).

The only verse used by MacArthur in that video—in fact, the only verse in the entire New Testament—that could even remotely be considered an endorsement of a Christian taking up a weapon of any kind is the highly controversial Luke 22:36.

Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take [it], and likewise [his] scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.

The shocking incongruity of this instruction within the rest of the wholly pacifist doctrine of Christ fuels the controversy surrounding this verse. The text says what it says and it simply cannot be ignored.

Firstly, I freely admit that the classic pacifist interpretations of this verse are unsatisfactory at best. These are that:

1) Jesus was talking about a knife to be used for killing and butchering animals in the field—a provisioning in keeping with the purse and knapsack of the same verse.

2) the sword is not real, but figurative (i.e. the Sword of the Spirit of Eph 6:17)

3) the sword is real, but the command was given to fulfill a certain prophecy (this would be Isa 53:12, according to the Wycliff Bible Commentary, Moody Bible Institute, 1962)

Jesus wasn’t talking about a knife. The disciples, while they may have misunderstood His point, did not misunderstand the word Jesus used: μάχαιρα [machaira], a small sword. Yes, machaira can mean a “large knife”, but in every other place it’s used in the NT (29 times in all), it clearly means the common Greek weapon; including in the Lord’s admonishment to Peter after he uses it to cut off Malchus’ ear (John 18:10-11).

That's not a knife...

As well, it is disingenuous to suggest that the sword is figurative. After all, no one thinks the “purse” and “scrip” of the same verse are figurative, so why would the “sword” be? The purpose for the sword might be figurative, but a real sword is clearly meant.¹

As to the idea that the disciples arming themselves was for the sake of fulfilling the prophecy that the Messiah would be “numbered with the transgressors”, this is so absurd I don’t even want to debunk it. Suffice it to say that Jesus was numbered with the transgressors when he was sentenced to a criminal’s execution.

To me, it is the shocking nature of this instruction which negates the meaning the non-pacifist side wishes to give to the Lord’s words. The idea that, from Gethsemane on, every disciple of the Prince of Peace is to arm himself is in such direct opposition to everything else Jesus taught, that it simply can’t be what He meant. After all, the minute Peter used the sword for defensive purposes, Jesus stopped him, rebuked him, healed the injured “aggressor”, then gave us one of the most pacifist statements in the Bible (Matthew 25:52):

Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.

In any case, how does Luke 22:36 translate into permission for Christians to join today’s U.S. Military? Perhaps, as the verse suggests, the disciples then were to acquire swords, but to extrapolate from this that Jesus was endorsing the carpet-bombing of entire foreign cities into rubble in order to defend Christian families back home is a stretch of ludicrous proportions.

From this one incongruent interpretation of Luke 22:36, it is difficult enough to make the case that all Christians are to defend themselves against physical attack, but to make the case from it that all Christians are now permitted to join secular armies and participate in the mass killing of potential invaders is simply impossible. We are to submit to the Sovereignty of God in all things, especially with regards to becoming targets of the ungodly. If He allows us to be mugged, invaded or massacred, so be it!

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to [his] purpose. (Romans 8:28)

MacArthur's Christian Cowards?

This pro-defense position of MacArthur’s is more fully explained in one of his audio broadcasts from 1985 entitled Answering Tough Questions About the Christian and Government (click on the link to listen to and/or read the transcript). Here MacArthur was answering the questions, “How is war to be justified? Is it right or isn't it right for a Christian to be a part of the military service and, in the process of being involved in the military service, take a life?”

It’s true that this recording is nearly 30 years old now, but, as you’ll see if you click on the link, it’s still posted on the Grace To You website. Clearly, if he’d changed his position to such an extent that he would now disavow any of these statements, he would’ve had his people either post some kind of qualifier, or take the whole thing off the site.

Nations rise, nations fall; war is a part of that. I believe as a Christian the only time that you can enter in to such activity, whether it's as a soldier in an army, or as a policeman, is in defense of someone who is being attacked by an evil aggressor.

Yes, John, but there’s the rub: Who gets to determine who is evil? Is every aggressor evil? If so, what does that say about pre-emptive strikes? Does Christ allow you to kill that gang-banger on the corner because you are convinced he will one day be an evil aggressor?

Besides, once you are in the Army, you no longer get to choose what missions you participate in. You can't opt out whenever you think the Generals have made the wrong decision.

Here's another question for you, John, one that no Christian ever poses when he’s justifying Christians serving in the U.S. Military: What about those Christians living in the “enemy” nation? One of the fundamental commandments to Christians is to “love” one another (see John 13:34-5, 15:12 & 17; Rom 12:10, 13:8; Gal 5:13; Eph 4:2; 1 Thess 4:9, 3:12; Heb 10:24; 1 Peter 1:22, 3:8; 1 John 3:11 & 23, 4:7 & 11 & 12, 2 John 1:5). How are we loving them by calling them our “enemy” and killing them? How does a Baptist strafing the “enemy” with a 50-calibre machine-gun from his Cobra Helicopter avoid hitting his Brothers in Christ?

Right.

The second representative argument in favor of Christian involvment in the military I want to look at comes from an article entitled Can Christians Serve in the Armed Forces? by Martin L. Cook, the U.S. Naval War College's Professor of Leadership & Ethics at the College of Operational & Strategic Leadership. I found the article at Religion Online. The article first appeared in the July 4-11, 2001 edition of The Christian Century.

Cook's article is a marvelous example of academic erudition. From Luther to Pericles, via the Swan of Avon, it cuts an impressive historical and literary swath. His argument is rational and dignified, as befits a Christian ethicist of Cook's calibre; which makes it all the more surprising when you realize that early on he admits that there's no biblical basis for it!

First, he gives us a bare-bones definition of the “function of the military” (one John MacArthur should take note of):

Let’s start with the core function of the military—its essential reason for being. All activities in the military ultimately serve to sustain the “pointy end of the spear.” In its most formal and sterile formulation, their purpose is “national defense.” A more direct expression is “fighting and winning America’s wars.” When military people talk among themselves, they state the unvarnished truth: it is “killing people and breaking things.”

Cook then hands his rhetorical sword to the Christians on the other side of the debate:

The prima facie case against Christians’ performing this function is unquestionable. The message of the New Testament, the early church and the example of Jesus himself all point to nonresistance to evil as the model of Christian life.

Wait...what?

This is a staggering admission! What could he possibly say now to convince Christians that they should question the “unquestionable” and join the military?

Well, continuing in the same paragraph, he simply places a pagan, antichristian obligation onto the shoulders of the slaves of Jesus:

Yet those texts and examples fail to address a perennial problem: How do we protect innocent people and maintain order in a world where wrongdoing is a permanent feature of life?

The short answer, Professor, is that we don't! If Christ, the Apostles and the leaders of the early church didn't do it or tell us to, then I would say we shouldn't be doing it.

But we can see what is actually going on with Professor Cook and Pastor MacArthur: they are convinced that the United States of America is God’s Chosen Christian Nation for the Spreading of Global Goodness. So ethno-centric is their world-view, so steeped in patriotism and American exceptionalism are they, that they cannot see the U.S. for the pagan, antichrist, modern-day Roman Empire that it is. And once you’ve swallowed that lie, it’s a short hop to equating Christian service with U.S. Military service.

1 John 2:15 anyone? Maybe James 4:4?

Here, for example, MacArthur makes distinctions based on relative cultural values, but imagines he’s making them using objective, biblical ones:

So I believe the issue in war can be very simply understood. If a war is a war of defense against an evil and aggressive intruder who comes to murder an innocent people, then I believe self-defense is a just act. If, for example, I'm in the United States and I was drafted into the services of the United States in the time of war because we were attacked by Russia and the Russians came to try to take away our nation and destroy our lives and massacre millions of us...or if Russia decided to invade our Canadian friends to the north and I was called to go there and defend them against that evil aggressor, I believe that that would be a just act of defense.

If, however, I was a Russian citizen and the Russians recruited me for their army and said, "Go to Afghanistan and massacre as many people as possible so we can take their land and turn it into a communist land," I couldn't do that.

Clearly, John MacArthur is convinced that the U.S. nation is godly and good while (pre-perestroika) Russia is godless and evil. Where did he get such an unscriptural notion? In what book of the Bible does God institute the United States of America and confer His blessing upon it? Does MacArthur really believe that the Declaration of Independance is Holy Writ? That the Constitution is the 67th Book of the Bible?

From Genesis to Jefferson

As for Cook, here he is, after already surrendering any biblical justification for his argument, dressing the same cultural bias as MacArthur in political language [my emphasis added]:

In the current international context, the U.S. serves as what former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright called the “indispensable nation”. In peacekeeping and diplomacy, U.S. participation is expected and sought by almost all other states...

The ability to threaten and to use coercive force is a morally necessary instrument of worldly power. We who benefit from the voluntary service of our fellow Christians (and others) who take on the moral, physical and spiritual burden of that service honor them poorly when we simply wish those sad necessities away...

In the contemporary geopolitical circumstance, service in the American military is, on balance, a force for relative good. That good is grounded in a balance of power and coercion, a balance that Reinhold Niebuhr argued is the closest approximation to justice and peace achievable in this world. To the fundamental question then—is military service to defend and advance American national interest and security a valid Christian vocational choice?—my answer is yes.

So, the real master being served by Christians in the Military is not Christ, but a manmade geo-political entity; those being defended are not His brethren, but rather anyone squatting within this entity's self-defined borders.

Cook continues:

Unless we are really willing to give up the “empire”—the place America has secured for itself in the economic and political sphere of the world—we must also accept the burdens, practical and moral, of maintaining that place. It is simply bad faith to derive the benefit and then condemn a major source of that benefit.

Furthermore, unless we really believe the world as a whole would be better off without the U.S. to play the “indispensable nation” role, we must think clearly about the fact that our power serves not merely national but global welfare and stability.

Remember, Cook's essay was first published in Christian Century magazine, a magazine that Wikipedia describes as the “flagship magazine of U.S. mainline Protestantism”. Let's hope the flagship magazine of U.S. mainline Protestantism has sailed back into more Spirit-filled waters.

What's wrong with this picture?

Of course, if John MacArthur is anything to go by, Mainline Protestantism is still paddling in circles near the reefs of American-style replacement theology. In his 2011 sermon, Why Christians Submit to the Government, he finishes with a note of hope for his troubled nation:

[Psalm 81:16] is a plaintive cry from God who says, “O that My people would listen to Me, that Israel would walk in My ways. I would turn from abandoning them, from giving them over to their own sinful choices to defending them and protecting them and punishing their enemies and I would feed them with the finest of the wheat and with honey from the rock I would satisfy them.”

The key, listen to Me. Walk in My ways. The only hope for this or any other society is to hear the Word of the Lord and obey it...to hear the Word of the Lord and obey it. And I would suggest that this is not a good time for weak men preaching weak messages in weak churches. This is a time for bold and powerful, strong biblical ministry that calls people to hear the Word of the Lord and respond. This is the only hope for any people for any individual.

Sorry, John, but God’s People is God's Israel, which is the Universal Church, the Bride of Christ, it is not the earthly nation state you happened to have been born into. Right message; wrong target.

Yes, the only hope for Christians is to hear the Word of the Lord. And before they join the U.S. Military, they might want to hear these:

¹⁶ And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, “I will dwell in them, and walk in [them]; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. ¹⁷Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate,” saith the Lord, “And touch not the unclean [thing]; and I will receive you, ¹⁸and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters,” saith the Lord Almighty. (2 Corinthians 6:16-18)

Amen







Footnotes:

1. I was wrong when I wrote this paragraph. After examining the issue further, it is clear to me now that the sword is indeed figurative. See the post The Sword of the Lord for details.

Doctrine vs Theology

Sometimes the simplest idea can be the most profound.

ἔσται γὰρ καιρὸς ὅτε τῆς ὑγιαινούσης διδασκαλίας οὐκ ἀνέξονται, ἀλλὰ κατὰ τὰς ἐπιθυμίας τὰς ἰδίας ἑαυτοῖς ἐπισωρεύσουσιν διδασκάλους κνηθόμενοι τὴν ἀκοήν.

2 Timothy 4:3

I first mentioned Michael Rood on this blog back in January after watching his video series about the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew entitled Raiders of the Lost Book. I’ve been watching a lot of his videos on Youtube since then and have to say that I’m mightily impressed. Although I’m still a bit skeptical about Rood’s extreme Judaizing (most notably revealed in his misinterpretation of Colossians 2:8 in his two part video Let No Pagan Judge You), for the most part, I find his Hebraic perspective on the Scriptures enlightening.

In Episode 3 of his Prophecies in the Fall Feasts series, Rood said something about how the Hebrews understand doctrine that, despite the matter-of-fact way it was put, struck me as terribly significant (slide to the 06:50 mark):



So, basically the Hebrew way of thinking is to consider doctrines to be commandments on how to act, rather than as theological instructions on how to think, that doctrine teaches how to do what God wants, not why it should be done. In other words, when considering biblical instruction, doctrine, the first consideration is to ask how one puts it into practice.

The profundity of this distinction wasn’t apparent to me immediately, but the more I thought about it, the more amazed I became. It was the first time I’d ever really given a thought to the distinction between doctrine for works and doctrine for theology, and I began to see a wonderful utility in calling the former “doctrine” and the latter “theology”. I now believe it is essential for preachers and teachers to make this distinction (whether these terms are used or not), because until it is understood and made clear to believers, an essential element will be missing from the Lord’s instructions—practical application!

Currently, doctrinal exhortations and commandments from Protestant pulpits are heavy on the theology and light on the doctrine; or, if you will, heavy on the why and light on the how. After getting people all fired up on why they need to do something, they neglect to tell them how to do it; thereby leaving the people in a state of confused frustration.

As an example, take the sermon I heard last Sunday at Church. Taking Romans 12:1 as his cue, the Pastor spoke stirringly about the need for us to be an example to the world by heeding the Apostle Paul’s call to become a “living sacrifice”. He completely convinced us that this was indeed our “reasonable service”. The only problem was that he didn’t tell us how we were to do this. He gave us all the why’s, but none of the how’s.

This lack of practical instruction (henceforth to be known as “doctrine”) in sermons has been a criticism of mine for quite some time now; which probably explains why Rood’s simple distinction had such an impact on me. All the way through the sermon I kept thinking, “Tell them how. Tell them how! TELL THEM HOW!” All he had to do was cite a couple of the following Synoptic Gospel verses werein Jesus tells us how to be a sacrifice:

Matt 10:38—And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.

Matt 16:24—Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any [man] will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

Mark 8:34—And when he had called the people [unto him] with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

Mark 10:21—Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.

Luke 9:23—And he said to [them] all, If any [man] will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.

Luke 14:2—And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.

So, clearly, to be a living sacrifice, we must first deny ourselves (act contrary to our flesh), then pick up our crosses (to which we are condemned by the world by bearing true witness), and follow Him (to His self-sacrifice for the Kingdom). See? Easy!

Now that's doctrine you can sink your teeth into.



Upon reflection, it occurred to me that so little practical doctrine is given in sermons these days because of a fear of overdoing it and becoming legalistic, or worse, works-based. In the Reformation, we were taken from the desiccated works of the Roman Catholics into the dry wilderness of Faith Alone-ism; all the while forgetting the warnings of the Apostle Yaakob (see James 2:20, 26). Now we are in a place were it is seen as dangerous to tell the flock too specifically what Jesus told them to do.

Okay, I'm going to leave that thought there for now and give this whole doctrine/theology distinction a long think. In particular, I'm going to ruminate on the possible relevance to this post of the two different Greek words in the NT that have been translated “doctrine”: διδασκαλία [didaskalia] and διδαχή [didache].

Oh, and I guess I'm also going to have to reconsider the wording of my Deconstructing Doctrines series.


Right.

Who is the θεος of this World?

Bible Study rule #2: Be aware of translator eisegesis.

³ But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: ⁴ In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

2 Corinthians 4:3-4

As a student of the original languages, whenever I'm reading the Bible in English, simultaneously, in the back of my mind, I'm wondering how the original text looks; which is why, while reading 2 Corinthians 4:4 in the KJV last night, the phrase “god of this world” virtually jumped off the page at me. My first thought was, “Oh-oh, is this another example of wildly misleading translator eisegesis in the English New Testament?” A quick look at the verses in the Greek NT had me thinking it was.

³ εἰ δὲ καὶ ἔστιν κεκαλυμμένον τὸ εὐαγγέλιον ἡμῶν, ἐν τοῖς ἀπολλυμένοις ἐστὶν κεκαλυμμένον· ⁴ἐν οἷς ὁ θεὸς τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου ἐτύφλωσεν τὰ νοήματα τῶν ἀπίστων εἰς τὸ μὴ αὐγάσαι αὐτοῖς τὸν φωτισμὸν τοῦ εὐαγγελίου τῆς δόξης τοῦ Χριστοῦ ὅς ἐστιν εἰκὼν τοῦ θεοῦ.

I then checked the readings in other English versions on Blue Letter Bible—the NKJV, NIV, ESV, YLT, ASV, DBY, WEB, HNV—as well as the Spanish RVR (Reina-Valera) and the Latin Vulgate, and, yep, they all showed a small-g god of this world. The NLT (New Living Translation) went so far over the cliff of eisegesis as to helpfully include the word “Satan” into their translation.

Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don't believe.

For those who might not get what all the fuss is about here, I should explain that the original Greek texts of the Bible were written in uppercase letters. In fact, there were no lowercase or cursive letters when the NT books were first penned; these were a later scribal development.

This means that there was no literary convention whereby proper nouns were capitalized to distinguish them from common nouns—as with God and god—so there was no way to know from the morphology alone whether a proper noun or common noun was intended.¹

Even now, in lowercase Greek texts like the one above, you can see that there is no distinguishing capitalization on the two occurrences (in red) of the word θεός [theos], which is translated “god” in English. In these modern Greek texts, you will find proper names capitalized, but not common nouns, so there’s never a capital theta (Θ) on θεός.

Given that, you can now see that the translating of the first θεός in this verse as “god” and the second one as “God” is a function of translator interpretation. It all hinges on who the translator believes the Apostle Paul is referring to as the “god of this age” (the use of the word “world” is another interpretation rather than translation. The Greek word αἰών [aion] is closer in meaning to the word “age”, and is used to refer to an unbroken, therefore eternal, perpetuity of time.).

There are arguments on both sides of this question, but I am convinced, by the context, as well as the whole counsel of Scripture, that the Apostle Paul meant the God in 2 Corinthians 4:4. Sam Shamoun on the Answering Islam website has a great post about this very thing here. Conveniently, all my arguments (and more) are there, so there’s no need for me to detail them all now.

No matter which side you eventually fall on, however, it is still important to realize that there are many instances like this where the translators (and those who employed them) have taken it upon themselves to interpret the words of Scripture, rather than just translate them. In fact, the same capitalization decisions made with θεός were made regarding the word πνεῦμα [pneuma], which is translated as “spirit”. In the absence of the adjective “holy”, the translators decided when the Author meant uppercase-s “Spirit”.

Of course, interpretation is impossible to avoid entirely when rendering one language into another, but it is my firm belief that, especially with Scripture, in order to keep interpretation down to a minimum, a word for word translation should be done as consistently as possible, regardless of how odd it might look in English (E.g. if there is no first letter morphological distinction in the Greek text, then don’t capitalize the English text ever!). Any great amount of interpretation that a translator thinks might be needed could easily be done with foot or margin notes. That way, the reader would be given a purer text that he can either interpret or query for himself, without being forced to accept the questionable doctrine of an insular ecclesiastical or academic gate-keeper.

Herr Professor Brooke Foss Westcott II

But, of course, this has not happened with our English Bibles. Right now, the only way a believer can truly know what the Word of God said is to study with the original texts. However, to do this effectively, he will first have to acknowledge that doctrinal eisegesis has occurred in our English Bibles, and that even his most foundational belief might be in error, wholly or in part. One of the greatest tools used to corral Christians away from truth and the authority of the Bible into ignorance and dependence on church leadership has been English-only instruction.

καὶ γνώσεσθε τὴν ἀλήθειαν καὶ ἡ ἀλήθεια ἐλευθερώσει ὑμᾶς—John 8:32

Indeed.









Footnotes:

1. I am aware of the scribal custom of abbreviating certain holy names like ΙΗΣΥΣ [IESUS] and ΘΕΟΣ [THEOS] as ΙΣ and ΘΣ respectively, but this too was a later development and every bit an example of eisegetical translation as proper name capitalization.

When is a Union a Marriage?

If God doesn’t care what hellish unions the ungodly forge, why do we?

καὶ εἶπεν ἕνεκεν τούτου καταλείψει ἄνθρωπος τὸν πατέρα καὶ τὴν μητέρα καὶ προσκολληθήσεται τῇ γυναικὶ αὐτοῦ καὶ ἔσονται οἱ δύο εἰς σάρκα μίαν.
—Matthew 19:5

Although I’ve finished the Bible study God Hates Divorce? I’m still researching what the Bible actually teaches about marriage. And the more I look into it, the more astounded I am at just how unscriptural all our marriage doctrines are. It seems that the false belief that God hates divorce was simply a tiny tip of a very large iceberg of error.

Let’s chip-off and examine another miniscule piece of that giant iceberg…

One thing that Christians invariably do whenever they think about marriage is to equate whatever they call a marriage with what the Bible calls a marriage. For some strange reason, in their promotion of lifelong matrimony, or in their denunciation of no-fault divorce, it never occurs to them to ask whether the marriages they’re getting all exercised over are even real marriages in the first place; that is, marriages in the sight of God.

This failure to question their definition of marriage is partly due to enculturation and partly due to tradition. Most of us have grown up in countries where the culturally approved definition of marriage was identical to the predominant religious definition of marriage. This is not surprising, since our societal form of marriage was informed by our religious traditions. Just like the term “family”, there was never any reason to think that what we call a marriage in everyday speech might not be the same thing the Bible calls a marriage.

Well, let me be the first to say it: They are not the same.

Before I go any further, though, I should acknowledge that officially the Church of Rome has always treated marriage as a Holy Sacrament and viewed Catholic marriages as the only true marriages. In theory, this meant that the Catholics viewed all non-Catholic unions as pagan couplings and the children of these unions as bastards. In practice, however, the Catholic Church has been its typical hypocritical self and, whenever it was politically or ecumenically convenient, granted all sorts of exceptions and special dispensations of Bishops and Cardinals (or whoever) to allow the parish priests to avoid applying the Church’s rules.

In any case, the Catholic doctrine on marriage is no more biblically legitimate than those of other Christian Churches, although their basic concept of unions being marriages only when they are sacred is spot on.

All of which then begs the question, “When is a union a marriage?”

The answer to this question can be found in Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians. The main thrust of this epistle is to call the believers in Corinth (and, by extension, all believers) to doctrinal unity. In Chapters 6 & 7, Paul is expounding on the proper way to view and deal with marriage.

I’m not going to flesh out the entire doctrine of marriage right now, I just want to draw your attention to a very important distinction Paul makes with regards to the marital status of three categories of believers in his letter (Remember Bible Study General Principle #1: The Bible is written for and to believers only!).

Now, let's take a look at 1 Corinthians 7:8. As you do, please keep in mind that the Greek word translated “wife”, γυνή [gune], means “woman”, and the Greek word translated “husband”, ἀνήρ [aner], means man (as in male, not human). Therefore, in ascribing titles to these people that might or might not have been implied by the author, whenever the translators wrote “wife” or “husband”, they were interpreting the text, not simply translating it.

I say therefore to the unmarried and widows...

So the first category of believer Paul is addressing is made up of those who are currently not married or widowed.

Next, in v.10, he addresses a second category of person he calls “the married”:

And unto the married I command, [yet] not I, but the Lord, Let not the wife depart from [her] husband: But and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to [her] husband: and let not the husband put away [his] wife.

The “advice” to eschew separation Paul gives to both the men and women of this second category is an exact echo of the Mosaic Law on divorce as written in Deuteronomy 24:1-2 and clarified by Jesus in Matthew 19:3-9. Which is why Paul is careful to note that this commandment comes from the Lord, not him. This is clear evidence that Paul considers the unions of those he calls “the married” to be subject to the Law of God, meaning that their unions are sanctified. In short, he calls them “the married” because they have actual marriages.

This is made abundantly clear by the next category he addresses in v.12.

But to the rest speak I, not the Lord: If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away.

And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him.

What? “The rest”? Who are “the rest”?

Well, it has to be all those believers who he has yet to address, those he doesn’t categorize as unmarried, widowed or married; believers, male and female, who have partners that are unbelievers.

By the way, this is why it is important to know what the translators have done here in using the titles “wife” and “husband”. The Apostle clearly doesn't consider the believers married, so why would he call their unbelieving partners “wives” and “husbands”? He didn't. He called them “women” and “men”. The translators eisegeted their misunderstanding of this text into their translation and ended up contradicting the author and misleading the reader.

So, by implication, those who the Apostle calls “the married”, who have sacred, biblical marriages, are pairs of believers. Therefore, a union becomes a biblical marriage when both partners are believers.

This is why Paul doesn’t offer the Word of God to these believers with unbelieving partners, but instead offers his own advice. This is because their unions aren’t biblical marriages—they haven’t been, as Jesus put it, joined together by God (Matt 19:6)—and can be dissolved without any spiritual consequences, as we see in v.15.

But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such [cases]: but God hath called us to peace.

This all makes perfect sense, when we remember what marriage really is: The union between Christ and the Church (Eph 5:32). Spiritually, a mixed-marriage, one between believers and unbelievers, is a mixture of the holy and the profane.

Just another hellish union of the ungodly.

Coming to the full understanding of the biblical distinction between a sacred marriage and a pagan union, one immediately realizes that our civic and ecumenical definitions of marriage are entirely irrelevant to God. This, in turn, should help us see that, what unbelievers choose to call a “marriage”, whether same-sex or common-law, has no bearing on the true, universal Church.

So, all the stress and agitation by Christians over things like epidemic divorce or gay marriage is completely unnecessary. As far as God is concerned, if both couples in a union are not believers, then there is no marriage there.